The petitioner was unfairly portrayed as a Jubilee mole, the court found/CFM
KISUMU, Kenya, Mar 1 – Ugenya Constituency is headed for a by-election after the Kisumu High Court nullified the election of area MP Christopher Karan over irregularities.
Judge Tripisa Cherere ordered Karan and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to pay Sh 7 million to the petitioner, former MP David Ochieng.
Cherere in her ruling faulted the ODM party for mounting a dirty campaign against Ochieng who vied on a Movement for Democracy and Growth (MDG) party ticket.
The petitioner proved to court that ODM party stalwarts in the constituency painted him as a Jubilee candidate yet he did not run on that ticket.
Cherere agreed that there was a proven use of propaganda against the petitioner that sullied the integrity of the polls.
Cherere found that the petitioner had a difficult time campaigning in the constituency due to the propaganda peddled by ODM party.
Post-verdict, Karan told his supporters that he would be appealing the judgement/CFM
She observed that the electoral irregularities witnessed in Ugenya during the campaigns and the voting stage could not be simply be viewed as inconsequential.
Cherere advised that those who participated in electoral irregularities and mentioned in court should be held liable.
Karan of ODM was declared winner of the August 8, 2017 election after garnering 23,765 votes while the petitioner got 23,482 votes.
